Vernon Hills Native Kevin Wang Named to Forbes '30 Under 30' List

Kevin Wang, 23, a Vernon Hills native and graduate of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, was named to the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the field of law and policy. Wang was recognized for his use of technology to improve transparency and accountability of open source source.

Wang created an open source initiative TL;DRLegal, which was a Google-like search for open source software licenses explained in plain english. Building on the success of the project in 2014, Wang founded a commercial company called FOSSA and secured $2.2M in venture funding led by Bain Capital Ventures along with an all-star list of participants including Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff, former YouTube CTO/co-founder Steve Chen, former Skype CTO/co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and Cloudera CTO/co-founder Amr Awadallah.

Wang started coding games at the age of 9 and founded two startups while participating in an Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. He also won the prestigious Thiel Fellowship, which awards $100,000 to entrepreneurs younger than 20.

That fellowship program, created by PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, is designed as an alternative to college for startup founders and technologists. Fellows are required to give up other employment or educational enrollment for two years, which they spend building companies and connecting with mentors. Wang was one of more than 500 applicants in 2013.

Today FOSSA is used by over 500 open source projects and has thousands of users globally.